Review: Inferno

Inferno (12A)

USA 2016 121 mins Dir: Ron Howard Cast: Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Irrfan Khan, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Ben Foster, Omar Sy

Leg day most certainly is not skipped in Inferno, the third instalment of Dan Brown’s escalatingly idiotic movie series. With a hero who could just as easily set an Olympian sprint record as publish a book on ancient history, the film charges from monument to monument, room to room, country to country as Tom Hanks’ braniac world saver Robert Langdon breathlessly races to prevent another deadly conspiracy from destroying the entire world.

Perhaps in a bid to disguise how utterly empty and foolish its source material is, director Ron Howard, back following the inane The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, keeps everything barrelling forward at such a relentless pace that we’re often at a loss to know which city we’re in, let alone what piece of mysterious artwork the characters are meant to be deciphering. That said, and this really is damning with faint praise, Inferno is quite easily the most entertaining of the bunch: less relentlessly gloomy than Da Vinci and marginally less insultingly dumb than Angels & Demons, which really did take the piss with its skydiving Pope finale, it at least boasts an intriguing set-up.

Everything begins with Robert deprived of his greatest asset: his memory. Waking up with amnesia in a Florence hospital with no knowledge of how he got there, he’s soon assisted by Dr Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) when assorted bad ‘uns and government agents come gunning for him. In his possession is something called a Faraday Pointer that containis within it a Botticelli’s map of hell, itself based on Dante. It’s all convoluted hogwash tied into the recent suicide of rabble-rousing figure Betrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), who prior to his death designed a deadly plague dedicated to re-addressing Earth’s overpopulation by eradicating humanity. Oh, and Dante’s Death Mask has been stolen, secreted somewhere else and inscribed with a clue. Right…

So as before it’s utter nonsense, overly reliant on exposition and hampered by a fatal lack of irony. Even more disappointingly this time not even the technical aspects of the film are up to snuff. Disconcertingly insistent on close-up shakey-cam paranoia that masks the gorgeous, real-life locations (as if to compensate, Howard utilises the odd aerial tracking shot to remind us where we are), it has a sadly utilitarian air that resembles a feature-length CSI: Miami episode. Not even the input of veteran Howard collaborator Hans Zimmer hits the mark, buzzing, anonymous electronics replacing the rich Gothic grandeur of the earlier scores.

It falls to the ever-likeable Hanks to ground the bone-headed proceedings with a nice degree of understatement. As a character, Langdon is still extremely dull but at least this time there is a semblance of humanity via his past relationship with WHO bigwig Dr Elizabeth Sinskey (The Duke of Burgundy‘s Sidse Babett Knudsen), nicely conveyed by both actors. Felicity Jones adds a typical touch of class as does the effortlessly poised Irrfan Khan as the mysterious Provost whose role involves… something that’s barely worth recapping. And although the end of the film cops out from the book’s bleaker climax (no doubt in an attempt to spin more Langdon movies in the future), some enjoyable set-pieces (including a pursuit through the eaves of Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio) provide momentary distraction. Just try not to think about any of it for too long or else tempers, and patience, will flare massively.